Summary translation

Organic farming is a production system that is more threatened by the introduction of exotic species than conventional farming. Current regulations and requirements to protect crop farming cannot provide a comparable level of protection to organic farming as they do it for conventional farming because they often involve control measures that cannot be applied to organic farming. For this reason the approximately 300 quarantine pests and diseases listed in EC Council Directive 2000/29/EEC were checked for their potential risk to organic farming. As a result 29 out of the listed species showed a particularly high risk potential to establish and cause damage to organic farming. Furthermore, significant harmful organisms that are not subject to regulations were analysed with regard to whether they pose a comparably higher risk to organic farming. Non-use of chemical pesticides to a large extent and lacking natural antagonists of the introduced organisms, which would allow self-regulation, result in a greater threat to organic farming by exotic species. Further, current risk assessment standards were checked for whether they satisfy the special requirements of organic farming. Proposals on a useful adaption to these needs were developed because the study showed a clear economic disadvantage for organic farming. Furthermore, vectors were identified that are not specified in the quarantine regulations but transmit regulated pathogens which in turn pose a high risk to organic farming. The project provides a first step to preserve and improve the present level of protection on this alternative farming system. It requires further detailed studies which would allow to take final decisions.